Today’s SAN-destroying monstrosity courtesy of Hawk’s Plateau.

He’s proud of it, too. After all, anybody who’d put this up is clearly capable of anything, including finding the below

Do you know what will prevent things like this from being inflicted upon you in the future? That’s right, hitting the tip jar for the travel fund.


(pause)

OK, that was a lie. But hit the tip jar anyway.

The slow-motion collapse of Democratic Detroit.

This cannot be sugar-coated, and I have no desire to even try.

Retailers Head for Exits in Detroit

There was a time early in the decade when downtown Detroit was sprouting new cafes and shops, and residents began to nurture hopes of a rebound. But lately, they are finding it increasingly tough to buy groceries or get a cup of fresh-roast coffee as the 11th largest U.S. city struggles with the recession and the auto-industry crisis.

No national grocery chain operates a store here. A lack of outlets that sell fresh produce and meat has led the United Food and Commercial Workers union and a community group to think about building a grocery store of its own.

[snip]

The city’s 22.8% unemployment rate is among the highest in the U.S.; 30% of residents are on food stamps.

Continue reading The slow-motion collapse of Democratic Detroit.

Next, they’ll be checking for homing pigeons.

Actually, they should check for homing pigeons.

EXCLUSIVE: Cuban spies’ shortwave radios go undetected

MIAMI | A retired State Department officer and his wife who are accused of spying for Cuba appear to have avoided capture for 30 years because their communications with the Caribbean island were too low-tech to be detected by sophisticated U.S. monitors.

[snip]

U.S. intelligence spends little time combing the shortwave bands for secret, nefarious transmissions, said James Lewis, director and senior fellow for the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“I’m not surprised [the U.S. intelligence community] missed this,” Mr. Lewis said. “We don’t put an emphasis on monitoring this kind of activity.”

Which is one reason why the Cubans use this technique. The other reason, of course, is because their ruling regime is shackled to a inferior and discredited economic/political philosophy whose only successes have been in turning large numbers of live peasants into dead ones.

At any rate, check the pigeon fanciers in southern Florida.  Just in case.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Did the White House interefere with more Inspectors General?

Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Three times is enemy action.
– Ian Fleming, Goldfinger

Being an inquisitive sort, Dan Riehl went looking for other instances where the White House may have been interfering with the Inspectors General, and lo! – he found some.  Two more, both of which are involved executive branch officials allegedly interfering with investigations and one of which involved a sudden Walpin-like abrupt termination.

The second example (Gerald Walpin being, of course, the first) was Neil Barofsky, TARP IG, and while it’s the less immediately worrisome of the two newly-publicized incidents it’s also the more sensitive.  There aren’t many details on this available yet, but the dispute seems to be over how much oversight Treasury should have over the IGs assigned to monitor specific functions of the department – and how quickly and easily IGs should be given the documents that they need for their investigations.  The answer should be ‘almost none’ and ‘as quickly and easily as can be arranged’… at least, that’s my opinion.  More importantly, it’s also Senator Grassley’s.  Barofsky apparently hasn’t lost his job over this, though.  Yet.  The third firing was of Judith Gwynn (often noted as Judith Gwynne, which should tell you how well regular journalism is covering this story), and it’s… very interesting, as well.  She was an acting IG for the International Trade Commission (expect that to be brought up, usually with the table being pounded) who abruptly had her contract terminated right after Sen. Grassley”s letter inquiring about an alleged physical assault* on her by an ITC staffer (expect that to be ignored for as long as possible) went to the White House. Continue reading Did the White House interefere with more Inspectors General?

Bermuda’s homeless shelter renovations delayed for lack of funds.

I bring this up primarily because Vexed Bermoothes, which I discovered while researching the entire Uighur thing, would like to know when the international community is going to help with that.

The planned overhaul of the Salvation Army’s homeless shelter has been delayed due to a lack of funds, according to Social Rehabilitation Minister Dale Butler.

Mr. Butler told The Royal Gazette yesterday that “the timeline has slowed down” for the complete renovation of the North Street facility, which was built in 1982 as a temporary structure.

The building was intended to last 15 years, but is still being used to house 55 homeless Bermudians 27 years on.

Answer:

(pause)

Hey, look! The new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is out!

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

I understand that AmericaBlog was speaking rhetorically…

…but the administration’s answer to this question:

With all due respect, don’t our civil rights deserve a bit more attention than some kluge thrown together at the last minute to save a cocktail party?

…would be “Not particularly, no.”

Moe Lane

PS: That being said – and speaking as an ex-Democrat (neocon edition) myself – Stacy McCain’s onto something here when he talks about the joys of voting as an act of revenge. It certainly spiced up the 2004 elections for me.

Crossposted to RedState.